


But For Tonight

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-12 23:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14737457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Molly's slowly losing it, and that's something Caleb gets. They distract one another.





	But For Tonight

Caleb is quite content in his little corner, sitting on the table and swinging his legs a little, he eats whatever kind of pastry Jester has handed him and watches the others as Beau and Nott match one another shot-for-shot and drown out the horrors of the day. Even Jester, beside them, is risking a quick swig of Fjord’s drink, and he offers it willingly. He looks as exhausted as Caleb feels.   
And Caleb sits apart from them, he’s holding at bay the anxieties of having yet another flashback, he doesn’t want to know what they think of him. They must think he’s weak. That he’s pathetic. A wizard with a fire cantrip that breaks down when he uses it? What use is that?   
Beau shoots him a brief, concerned look, and he waves the… doughnut? Croissant? He can’t tell anymore, it’s all tasteless to him. Beau watches, and for a moment, she looks like she might come over.   
And then Yasha sits heavily beside her and leans in until her head rests firmly on Beau’s shoulder, and there goes Caleb’s chance at her attention for the rest of the night.   
He gulps down another mouthful of bland pastry, and it sticks in his throat the way anything will when he wants to cry so badly.   
It goes down, eventually, and he sighs and tries not to let it shake.   
Mollymauk materialises, seemingly out of the shadows, in front of him, slams one hand onto the table either side of Caleb and keeps his head bowed.   
Caleb chokes on air, and jerks, the half-eaten pastry goes flying and he looks sadly after it. That was his food for the day.   
“Mol- Mollymauk, is everything okay?”   
Molly is silent, doesn’t move, doesn’t lift his head.   
“Molly?” Caleb lifts a hand to brush it over Molly’s ponytail, splayed in a wide fan over his back. It’s a sensation that Caleb knows he enjoys, the silken sensation over each little bump and curl in Molly’s unruly hair. The moment he puts any kind of pressure on the tiefling, though, he begins to shake with what Caleb can only assume is sobs.   
This is backed up by the quick glisten he sees dripping down the tip of Molly’s nose, and Caleb runs his fingers up, up Molly’s ponytail, jams all four of them into the space between Molly’s head and horns and tugs him up.   
“Oh, Molly.” He says, as though he isn’t cupping the back of his head as he cries, “You are usually so, so strong.”   
“Nobody can be strong forever, Caleb.” Molly points out, voice thickened by tears, he presses into the contact. “This is bullshit! None of this is fair! We shouldn’t have to do this!”   
Heads are turning, mumbling is starting, Caleb slips off of the table. Regrets it a little, he’s pressed up against Molly, but the tiefling is still fighting his sobs and it steels his resolve.   
“Come on.” Caleb tells him, pulls his hand from under his horn but reaches back behind him to take Molly’s hand from the table instead, “My room.”   
He pulls Molly along and up the stairs, waved on kindly by Fjord, halfway through chugging another drink. Molly goes willingly.

  
Caleb drags and pulls and pushes Molly into his room, and gives him one final, firm shove, watches him fall backward onto Caleb’s own bed.   
“I do not, I can’t, I am not built,” Caleb says, tersely, peeling off his coat, “For emotional reassurance and conversation. I cannot tell you that everything is okay, and that we will be okay, and do you know why?” The bandages go next. Molly looks up at him, sullen.   
“Why?”   
“Because,” Caleb pulls off his boots, “I, am not,” they’re flung to the side, “Like  _ you _ .” And drops, so that he can pin Molly the way Molly had pinned him. Or similar, it’s far harder to pin someone to a bed, he kneels over the tiefling, curtained by his own hair.   
“Like me?” Molly echoes dimly.   
“I can’t lie to you the way you could to me.” Caleb says, low and almost dangerous. He leans, every closer, and Molly stays stock still on the covers. “I won’t tell you that everything will be okay, but now, here, we are okay. You and I.”   
Molly’s eyes are wide, his breath is shallow,   
“I can’t fix things with words. What are you feeling, right now?” Caleb asks, his hair in a fringe around Molly, blocking out the lamplight. Molly’s breath stutters as he pulls it in.   
Caleb feels Molly’s tail brushing back and forth, hears the hiss of flesh on fabric.   
“Excited.” Molly says, hoarsely, and licks his lips, “Light? It- it’s like I’m… not solid.”   
“Good.” Caleb says, and Molly feels him lower his weight, until he’s half-sitting, half-lying on Molly. And Molly takes it as an invitation to pull his hands up, wrap them over Caleb and squeeze a little. Caleb squeaks with the shock, chuckles when he realises, and adds, “What about now?”   
Molly smiles up at him, full of love and warmth and adoration.    
He closes his eyes, slowly, and Caleb feels his whole body relax underneath him.   
“Safe.” Molly says, whispers, and Caleb smiles.   
“Good.”   
“Warm.” Molly continues, “Protected. Loved.”   
Silence follows, a few seconds of only dimly shocked quiet. Molly opens his eyes again to meet Caleb’s.   
“How are  _ you _ feeling, Caleb?”   
Caleb gives the kind of awkward, stunted laugh that follows something he can’t find an answer to.   
“Words, please.” Molly smiles and squishes his arms around Caleb just a touch harder.    
Caleb pulls his arms up and folds them under his chin.   
“I am still worried.” Caleb says, honestly, “But less, now, about the day that has passed and more for you. And for this.” he pushes down on Molly’s chest, a little, “And for the repercussions of this evening in the morning.   
Molly pulls one hand to either side of Caleb’s waist and brushes down, lower, lower. Caleb jerks at the sensation.   
“Nothing else needs to exist for tonight.” Molly tells him, quietly, “All I need is you.”   
“You know that isn’t true, Mollymauk.” Caleb sighs, and pulls his arms away again so that he can set his cheek to Molly’s chest, hear his heartbeat. “I can be, I can do many things, for you, but I can never be Yasha. Or Jester, or Fjord, and I am so far from being Beauregard that we might be on different planes.”   
Molly laughs. It sounds watery. Caleb keeps his head where it is, reaches up blindly to stroke the back of his hand over Molly’s cheeks, wipes away the tears that he knows are there.   
“All I want, then, right now,” Molly manages, “Is you. And the others can wait ‘til morning, they’ll still be there.”   
“Hungover,” Caleb smiles, “But there, regardless.”   
“I’m  _ very _ excited to wake Beau up. And she’s sleeping with Yasha, too, so she won’t be able to break my ribs.”   
“Again.”   
They both chuckle, warmly, Molly pulls his arms back up and around Caleb’s waist.   
They stay like that in warm, amicable silence for a while. A long while, it feels like. Eventually, though, Caleb sighs,   
“If we’re going to spend the night together, perhaps you should change.” he tells Molly, and peels himself away, finally. “You’re wearing  _ far _ too many clothes to comfortably sleep in.”   
Molly sighs as he draws himself upright, sits next to where Caleb is kneeling.    
“I know you’re right, I just don’t like the change.”   
He leans over, close to kissing Caleb, when a hand to his chest pauses him,   
“Ah- how much have you had?”   
“You know, for once,” Molly muses, drawing a hand up to Caleb’s shoulder, “Nothing. Stone cold sober.”   
Caleb eyes him.   
Does some consideration, lightning quick, the pros and cons of lying to him from Molly’s point of view.   
And decides, probably, that Molly is telling him the truth.   
“Okay.”   
And Molly closes the last couple of inches to kiss him, just very briefly.   
“Thank you, Caleb, for tonight.” He says, quietly, as he draws away. Stands up, begins stripping, “I love you. So much, Caleb, I love you.”   
Caleb smiles, throws himself sideways to the bed and scurries under the covers.   
“Oh, am I not getting it back?” Molly teases, drops his shirt to the floor and clambers in beside Caleb.   
Caleb lets him settle, pulls an arm up and over him.   
“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” He punctuates the sentence with a kiss, “I love you too.”


End file.
